According to an article in the London Times, GlaxoSmithKline – a major player in the pharmaceutical smoking cessation industry – has lobbied vigorously on behalf of stringent electronic cigarette regulation in the European Union. Specifically, a leaked memo apparently showed that Glaxo was telling policymakers that electronic cigarettes could be a gateway to smoking and that these products should be regulated as medicines, not as a type of nicotine or tobacco product.

According to the article: “One of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies has warned lawmakers that electronic cigarettes could act as a “gateway to tobacco”. The leaked correspondence from GlaxoSmithKline, whose nicotine patches, gums and lozenges are being undermined by the burgeoning e-cigarette market, reveals the opposition from the pharmaceutical industry to impending regulation of e-cigarettes across the European Union. The pharmaceutical industry wants medicines licences to be mandatory for e-cigarettes, as they are for nicotine products. Instead, the EU is set to introduce a system in which e-cigarette companies can opt in for medicines regulation or be regulated in a similar way to traditional cigarettes.”